Too many treat greatness not as a responsibility but as an entitlement, an inheritance that was earned for them. They fail to grasp that the struggle for our values is the prize. Take it for granted and it slips away. We will defeat enemies like the Islamic State by learning from our past, not airbrushing it.

Bosnia's Muslim leadership answers without ambiguity. We have to worry more about those who would appoint themselves to defend God against presumed insult than those purportedly committing the offense.

ISIS is now forcing the approximately 3,000 Christians remaining in Mosul, a major city with thousands of years of Christian history, to choose between essentially the same options given to Jews in 1492: live under intolerable, impoverishing dhimmi status; convert to Islam; leave; or die.

Inquisitions to current day intolerant extremists, life and resources are wasted with perverted extravagance. Difference and deviance have become the most frequently employed rationale to persecute, punish and kill.

If organized religion is not exclusively responsible for war, nonetheless, it is fair to ask does it justify our loyalty at least for preventing conflict and killing? More fundamentally, does organized religion tip the scales for peace over war?

The Inquisitions were infamous for their intolerance and hostility to science. Six centuries later, we still have wannabe inquisitors among us, and they are growing their ranks through the support of like-minded candidates.

As it became clear that Spain would face the Netherlands in the World Cup Final, I was reading Arturo Perez-Reverte's historical novel The Sun over Breda. It's a reminder of the bloody and painful history that joins these two nations.